Continuing Education Resources for Library Staff

Despite best efforts and planning your library may be faced with the reality of a positive COVID exposure. Hear from three public libraries on how they responded when they were confronted with a positive case situation. How had they pre-planned? How did they handle the challenge? How did the Director and Board work and communicate with staff, health department, government officials, and the public? What tips, lessons learned, and insight do they have?

Presented by the Chapter Relations Office and United for Libraries.

This training supplements our Librarian's Guide to Homelessness which is a 3.5-hour asynchronous, online training (email darci.hanning@state.or.us for more information). Upon completion of the training, your certificate will be available to save or print.

At the Homeless Training Institute, our mission is to train library staff members on how to compassionately and confidently manage problematic behavior from homeless, addicted, and mentally ill individuals.

As organizations are reopening, they are finding customers that are looking for a new audience to express their anger and frustrations about their feelings of a loss of normalcy and continued uncertainty. Because of that, dealing with individuals who are angry, non-compliant, and even hostile can and will likely become an everyday occurrence.

How you respond to their behaviors is often the key to de-escalating these situations and protecting yourself when a customer is losing control.

Areas of customer behaviors to be addressed in this webinar include:
• Not wanting to wear a mask or not willing to socially distance
• Verbally or physically threatening an employee or customer
• Spitting on an employee or customer
• Non-compliance and other unwanted behaviors
• Wanting to argue and to “be right” that you are wrong